X Rebirth Patch & Future Plans

The EGOSOFT website
has news that a new version 1.25 patch is now available for X Rebirth,
the latest installment in their space combat series. This is accompanied by
this trailer explaining
new features that the new version brings. There are more details on version 1.24
and 1.25 in
this forum post, which also outlines their near-future plans for what might
be considered an X Rebirth rebirth. They state: "There are many
other things we are working on. We will continue to add features and of course
fix bugs." Here's word on their future plans:

Now let me list a
few projects we are currently working on, and which will be released in some
form over the coming months. Note that this is FAR from a complete list. The
following are a few examples of the different areas being worked on, and they
are vaguely sorted in the order they may be released:

Support for Steam Workshop integration: We will
soon start releasing a number of tools on Steam to help modders work on X
Rebirth. We are also working on full support for the Steam Workshop in order
to make it possible for everybody to easily install mods by merely
subscribing to them, and by making it easy for mod developers to distribute
their work through Steam.

Map on event monitor: This was already mentioned
before. The first step will be to enable the map rendering on the event
monitor whenever it currently shows no signal. We will then introduce some
configuration options so the player can decide whether to view the map zone
map on the monitor or the current text information.

Improved support for joysticks and other input
devices: We are working on improving the input mapping menu and the general
support for input devices. There have been numerous individual requests in
this area, and we are trying to keep this as flexible as possible so X
Rebirth can be configured to make best use of all kinds of input devices.

Improvements to menus: Improving our menu system
is a big task, but some features that we've heard requested often could
materialize within the next one or two months. A good example of this is a
more powerful text based filtering system for menus akin to the trade menu.
After we have added text input menus for renaming your ship, the next step
will be to enable this functionality in live menus allowing the player to
filter quickly with their keyboard.

64bit EXE: Right now X Rebirth only runs on 64bit
Windows because of the amount of memory required, but it is still a 32bit
executable. We are experimenting with a new 64bit executable that could
potentially improve several issues. Rolling out the 64bit EXE will probably
happen as a beta in parallel to the 32bit EXE. Depending on the feedback, we
will then gradually move away from a 32bit EXE.

Providing interaction functionality with NPCs from
space to minimize forced landing: I know many people do not like being
forced to land on stations for frequently repeated tasks. The first step to
address this will be to have a list of all NPCs on a station available from
the station info menu, and to then make some activities possible remotely.
You will still probably need to be in the vicinity of the station - so that
drones can take over the transport of acquired goods for example - but you
only have to land to play missions and to pick up or deliver people.

Highway redesign: We've heard a lot of criticism
on the way the highways behaves, so we are experimenting with radically
different gameplay inside the highways. It's still too early to provide
details, but as soon as we have a prototype, we will probably make this
available as a beta. How soon this will then be rolled out for public
release will then depend on feedback we receive.